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"FacebookPinterest\n\nIn a love affair, barmini would wear its heart on its sleeve. Jos\u00E9 Andr\u00E9s\u2019s new cocktail lounge is unabashed about its romance with drinking. A rotary evaporator sits on a back counter churning out peanut essence and coriander aquavit. An ice crushing machine perches on an island expelling chilled pellets for swizzles. A collection of technicolor glassware lines the whitewashed shelves standing like so many toy soldiers waiting for deployment. Amidst it all, principal bartender Juan Coronado, is quietly crafting the evening\u2019s progression as other bartenders hover ardently over induction burners, and toil over sagittal Japanese ice picks.\n\nBarmini is situated adjacent to minibar in Washington, D.C., Andr\u00E9s newly expanded 12-seat chef\u2019s table, and acts as an intemperate punctation to the restaurant\u2019s lengthy tasting menu with diners ushered into the lounge for another round (or four) of desserts and drinks. If you didn\u2019t eat at minibar you can make reservations for barmini alone and leave well-fed on sugared chicharr&amp;amp;#xF3;n, uni sandwiches, and a grilled cheese that tastes as if it\u2019d been double fried in sweet cream butter. All of this alongside a barrage of cocktails that Coronado calls &amp;quot;a journey.&amp;quot; As he handed over a welcome teacup of punch, he insisted with earnest sincerity, &amp;quot;It is my job to tell the story of the cocktail.&amp;quot;\n\nThe story is this: barmini is an ercise in the unending tension between new and old\u2014the classic permuted into the modern. Upon entering the relatively blank foyer, my drinking companion and I were greeted with an affable concierge, and a pair of bathroom doors postmarked with thumb-sized stamps of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant magnified beneath a monocle. The next door revealed a room of white enamel, surrealist furniture (a lumpy cactus couch), and gilded barware flashing gold reflections of the highly lit space. The bar breaks like a heart down the middle revealing its seams, displaying an odd little wonderland peppered with beakers and ancient coupes, which might seem at odds in another space. One of these coupes (a treasure amidst the bar\u2019s $9000 investment in vintage glassware) is said to be one of the originals modeled after Marie Antoinette\u2019s left breast.\n\nI lifted this legendary piece of French hand-etched glass to my lips for a sip of the Maple Leaf: Applejack, lemon and maple syrup shaken into a silky autumn whir and served up. My companion worked on an ephemerally garnished Salt Air Margarita, one of the canonical Andr\u00E9s cocktails you\u2019ll remember if you\u2019ve ever seen the inside of Andres\u2019s The Bazaar in Los Angeles or Miami. These are two of the more modern cocktails in barmini\u2019s 100-plus cocktail arsenal. The menu spans from simplicity (Whiskey Sour) to esoteric (Black Shack, a coffee-infused Fernet, bourbon and berry mixture).\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nBars speak in different languages. Chicago\u2019s Aviary works in the language of the culinary innovation. New York\u2019s Pegu Club, Milk Honey, and Dutch Kills work in the language of classic simplicity. San Francisco\u2019s Bar Agricole works in the language of seasonality. barmini works in the language of unrequited (and geeky) love. It is not quite enough to just make drinks. The pieces must be taken apart, adulated, and then put back together again, shinier, stronger, and sexier than before.\n\nBy mid-drinking session, Coronado had removed his black velvet jacket, and in shirtsleeves, was working quietly in the style of Japanese bartenders\u2014small flourishes, a dramatic hard shake\u2014over a couple of mason jars. By this point we were finishing Red Jackets, a fuschia creamsicle dream of Campari and egg white. Then Coronado slipped a smoke gun into mason jars filling layers of amaro, vermouth, and sherry with the gun\u2019s cardamom, clove, and cinnamon ammo. The results tasted like a gypsy campfire, ethereally smoky, and oddly exotic, but not so weird as to abstain from quaffing the whole thing down in three or four swills.\n\nAs the epic cocktail hour drew to a close, the most proper orange-water scented cloud of a Ramos Gin Fizz was delivered. As Coronado continued to construct and deconstruct drinks before us, we asked the person next to us about his meal next door. He gestured to a window behind the bar that acts as a looking glass between barmini and minibar. &amp;quot;Do you know the story of Tutankhamun\u2019s tomb?&amp;quot; our professor asked. We shook our heads. &amp;quot;The archaeologist Howard Carter was taking his first look into the grave, holding a candle to a small crack to peer in. His partner Lord Carnavaron asked him, &amp;quot;Can you see anything?&amp;quot; All Carter could manage was, &amp;quot;Yes, wonderful things.&amp;quot; And that is all I can tell you about what happened over there,&amp;quot; he said waving his hand at the looking glass.\n\nWhen one falls in love, it\u2019s a difficult thing to describe in words. For a moment, every one of us in that bar\u2014the stranger at the bar, Coronado, me, my travel companion\u2014was having a love affair. Over a flawless Ramos Gin Fizz, a weekend away, an odd smoke-infused drink, a perfect cube of ice, a night out. And if you were to ask any of us what happened at barmini that evening, what we drank, what we saw, we may only be able to manage, &amp;quot;Wonderful things.&amp;quot;\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\n _Barmini\n\n minibarbyjoseandres.com\n\n 855 E St NW, Washington, D.C.\n\n (202) 393-4451 _\n\nPhotos by Rey Lopez\n\n Portrait by Rey Lopez \n\n Cocktails photo by Greg Powers\n\n Interior photos by Ken Wyner"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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